Staples targets B2C channel with new pricing platform

12 May 2017

Staples Australia/New Zealand has upgraded its internal pricing and promotional strategy platform with the appointment of Revionics, a global company specialising in ‘profit optimisation and solutions’.

The US-based company’s analytics service assists retailers to execute “profitable pricing, promotion, markdown, and space decisions with predictable business outcomes”.

In working with Staples Australia and New Zealand, the company said its services will ensure Staples will deliver “competitive and customer-centric pricing” to consumers and small businesses with less than 20 employees.

In a statement, Revionics said that Staples Australia and New Zealand’s head of pricing Charnine Short, who recently returned to Australia after serving as Staples’ European pricing manager for B2B, wanted to rapidly re-evaluate the company’s competitive insights and refresh the pricing strategy for Staples B2C business.

“Short and her team have implemented Revionics to ensure that customers receive the best prices on the items they care most about,” according to a revioincs media release.

“With Revionics’ real-time online competitive price monitoring and its automated rules-based price capabilities, we can offer small businesses throughout Australia the assurance that they are receiving the best price available, 24/7,” Short said. “We want to leverage Revionics’ capabilities to drive market growth in our B2C channel, create market-relevant pricing for our B2B non-contract business and design more targeted promotional pricing.”

Prior to implementing Revionics, Staples had been using an alternate competitive monitoring tool. Based on early results, Revionics said it has yielded a 20 per cent higher match rate than the legacy system with more accurate competitive matching as well. In addition,

“Innovative Australian retailers like Staples are leading the way in providing customer-focused, responsive pricing that reflects shopper priorities while meeting key business and financial goals,” Marc H. Hafner, Revionics’ chairman and CEO, said. “We are excited to work with Staples Australia and New Zealand to further accelerate their market leadership and expand their competitive advantage as we continue to expand our footprint in Australia and New Zealand and throughout Asia Pacific.”